I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out.

I HAVE sometimes looked at the outside of your book, as it lay on our table at WHITE’S, (huddled among the other periodical things, which we never dream of reading) and it is very likely the inside would have for ever passed by me unheeded, ”like the idle wind which we regard not,” if I had not heard the other day, at H–d house, that “there was matter in’t,” which might be read with some profit, and little trouble. , This good character, and from such good authority (for some of the learned in these mysteries were present) induced me last Wednesday to take it up. I dipped here and there into two or three of your numbers; and then found it was seven o’clock, and I was not dressed, though I was to dine at eight, with P–m, A–y, and one or two other Roués.

I started your book over our claret, and it struck us that it might be a good medium, through which, not only to clear away that cloud of error which has pervaded every production, professing to give a picture of the finished state of society to which we belong; but, also, to throw a new light upon those below us, and to show to every pretender the utter hopelessness of any endeavour towards reaching our splendid and giant-height that henceforth, no city Icarus may try his wing to his own destruction. This is some of the good we contemplate, , our design being very comprehensive. At the first glance, it may not appear so to you, but by and by you will perceive it is of no mean extent; and do not doubt our power to realize what we purpose , for l’homme bien nourri connoit tout ce qui passe partout.

We therefore intend to send you, from time to time, such sketches of the things about us, as we may be “i’ the vein” to make.

Our sources of amusement are as various, as our capabilities of enjoyment are extensive.

“Nought is for us too high, or aught too low.”

Mind! not low in the vulgar acceptation , not degrading , for, like Una among the satyrs, we genuine Roués always come out of every thing, pure and spotless. We can touch pitch without defilement. A morning at the Fives Court, at a sparring match; or at Old Caleb’s, in baiting a bull, is, to us, as exempt from deleterious contagion in manners, as a Conversazione in Arlington-street is incompetent to make us effeminate in mind: nor does the intellectual of an evening at Kensington, prevent our unbending to the sports of a morning at Tothill Fields. We are Proteus-like, and can change, yet be always the same; and, as the cameleon, we vary our hues according to circumstances: whether in a crimson squeeze in our funny – or black in our tilburys – or white in the drawing room, – we are toujours distingués. It is our privilege to be by nature formed for elegant pursuits, yet not incapable of extracting, without taint, enjoyment from merely vulgar ones. Our order can invert all order. Whether in the frequent quadrille, at Almack’s, in King-street, – or the occasional waltz of the Waterloo rooms, in Pall Mall – whether in the circle or the ring, the Roué is equally inimitable. Ease, self possession, la porte de cavalier, are his characteristics: , yet he is usually a scholar; has attained elegant literature, and elegant accomplishments; and can converse freely on useful sciences. He regards the sex with warmth, but is never fulsome. He is always welcome to women, because, though frequently light and trifling, he is never insipid. His life is made up and blended of the brightest hues: , he is

A gay creature of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow lives
And plays i’ th’ plighted clouds.

In his dress, the Roué does not disdain the “aid of ornament: “, it is gay, not gaudy; well fitted to display his form, but not too precise; exact, but not stiff , there is finish without apparent design: art is called in to assist nature.

The whole world without art and dress,
Would be but one great wilderness;
And mankind but a savage herd,
For all that nature has conferr’d;
This does but rough-hew and design,
Leaves art to polish and refine.

After this rigmarole (I love the word, it is so significant of our pursuits) you will ask, at what I aim? As I said before, to enlighten you and your readers , to show you some of our institutions , “to give you a peep into our knowledge box;” and more is to be found there “than is dreamt of in your philosophy.” First, however, let me declare, I must adopt my own method , or rather no method: I must not be directed , although as a Roué I must circumvolve, , yet it shall be eccentrically if I please. , Well then,

Never were characters, commonly supposed to have affinity or connexion, more really and widely dissimilar than are the Roué and the Dandy. , I have described the Roué , now to try my hand at the Dandy. The Dandy is not a man, but a mere graft upon the genuine stock. The body of the man, ’tis true, (and barely that) with an effeminate soul , (mark me! not a woman’s; for their’s is naturally noble) , with a soul, did I say? , Psha! “they have no souls!” they are weak , dull-minded “unfit to carry burthens.” They lisp, they amble, and they jig; and certainly they “nick-name God’s creatures.” They languish through quadrilles, and whisper their self admiration to their deriding partners. Their bodies want the sap which should make the branches flourish., We know them not, there is no sympathy between us: an eternal barrier divides us. , In a word, they are not les hommes bien nourris.

We may, perhaps, permit two or three of these things to come within our circle, now and then , but that is all. None belong to it. I’ll give you a case in point: , a city man, one day at White’s, invited B, m, l (poor B, ! but more of him on a future day) , Al, y, M, d, y, and myself, to dine with him. We stood apart, consulted, and the result was, that B, m, l was authorised to accept the invitation for us , but will this special and expressed proviso, that we could not so patronize our inviter again, and that he must not expect that any of us could ask him in return to our tables. Now, this man is by prescription at the head of his race: he is the best specimen we know of: he would fain be a Roué, but he wants the finish: he wants “that within which passeth show.” His wit is to our’s what the monkey is to the man: his walk the young elephant’s; and his dancing, the caracole of the dray horse. He is a dandy on a large scale! I haw mentioned White’s. You must know it , but some of your readers may not. It is now the leading subscription house in St. James’s-street,, the Royal Exchange of the west, where men of birth “do congregate.” This club, when party spirit ran high, between Fox and the heaven-born minister, , when Fox carried war into the very empyrean, , was the rallying point of the Pittites, as Brookes’s (on the opposite side of the street) was that of the Opposition. Here the great contending spirits met daily and nightly: at the one, those measures which agitated Europe, were submitted to the country gentlemen; while the spirit of resistance to the minister’s power and ambition, was cherished and fed at the other. In the morning they met to organize, , to train their opposing forces; at night, when debate was o’er, when the hurly burly was done, each party retired , this to Brookes’s, that to White’s. At Brookes’s it was that the inestimable patriot, Fox, next to St. Anne’s Hill, spent the happiest (and for that reason the wisest) hours of his life. , Here (I have heard my father say) has he listened to that voice , which now, alas! is silent , “while it kept the table in a roar;” here, when the storm was o’er, would the banished spirit of true-kind-heartedness return to its own home! here, with Sheridan, Bedford, Holland, Tierney, (the by-gone glories of our order) did his splendid spirit luxuriate in its natural simplicity ,

Untwisting all the chains that tic
The hidden soul of harmony.

After a night of revelry, he would haste to the shades of St. Anne’s Hill, and with a pocket Horace (his favourite companion) bring back his overflown soul within its own keeping: , there

In sweet retired solitude,
She plumed her feathers, and let grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometime impair’d.

But whither am I wandering? , Oh! I remember, I was taking you into White’s. Before you enter, look at its exterior! It hath the show of beauty on its front, which hath lately undergone some alteration and improvement. It is not to be sure so handsome as the Casino* on the Corso at Milan, or the Academia** in the Toledo at Naples, but it is the best thing of its kind in England; and if we are not so capable of the glowing and elegant, even in our lounges, as the refined yet enslaved Italians, our means are at least equal to our ends.

By the bye, I should mention for your information, and for that of etymologists in particular, as well as that it may be handed down to posterity, that the name of our place of meeting was not derived from the superior purity of its Pittite institutors, but from their first steward, whose cognomen was White.

I am not old enough to tell you, from my own experience, what the club was at first , that is, as lawyers have it, I was not found in the deed , but, I believe, it is not now that compact body which it once was; but it is better, it is the resort of property, rank, and character , of men of solid and light attainments, of the grave and the gay , of some of finest men of their age , of the “Preux chevaliers” of modern times. Here is a grave old Duke, with spectacles on nose, scanning a book on political economy; , there a youthful commoner, skimming over a pamphlet. On this side, a knot of plain country gentlemen, in the square cut frocks of Davidson, in Cork-street; and on that, a group of gay aristocrats, curved and rounded into shape by that greatest of geniuses, Mr. Stultz. The one party is intent on the corn bill, and poor’s rates, or the budget that is to be; while the other is engaged on the probable commencement of Almack’s, or on the betting for the next Derby and Ledger. Some are stubbornly fixed at the window that overlooks the street , whistling as they look for want of thought. , Thus the morning passes.,

What boots it, to tell me that this is the sunny side of the landscape? “As where’s the palace in which foul things sometimes intrude not.” If there be to be found here, political intrigue, spendthrift youth, giddy debauchery , and, (worse than all) aged lust , “the worm that eats into the bud of youth,” that “taints in its rudiments the promised flower,” yet are not these vices also to be found in every station?

But see the effects of addressing an Editor: it has set me preaching! what I have just been saying is, no doubt, true, , and pity ’tis ’tis true, but having said this, what more remains to be said? Shakspeare, who knew every thing, knew that

Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day!

I have never before attempted my hand at a composition since I left Oxford, and I look back to that period through a vista of seven summers: my astonishment is therefore extreme at the facility with which I have rolled on in my course , (rattling now and then, I dare to say, and deviating from the track); and as I am so well satisfied with my progress, I shall, perhaps, take up my pen after my return from the Opera to-night, and finish my intellectual day in extracting its merits. Pray do not be alarmed, I shall not invade your critical department, I hate criticism, it is un-ideal and vulgar , and that is the reason why your professed critic is generally poor and ragged; and well does he deserve to be so.

I had rather be a kitten, and cry , mew,
Than one of these same louthed critique-mongers.

The opera is essentially intellectual, as well as elegantly sensual, and how can rules be applied to such a combination? How can we define what is not defineable? , Criticism is surely then misdirected in her aim, , here she cannot fix. It is not any single part of our opera which attracts, it is the tout ensemble , we are not raised to mental intenseness by Camporese, or seduced into exquisite rapture by Vestris, considering them only with reference to themselves, or even with the melodies and harmonies they give life to: the elegant and informed soul of the one, or the alluring blandishments of the other would be nought in their effects, if we stopped to think of quality of voice, correctness of tone, and such like stuff. No! at the same moment, the mind is filled with the grace of motion and expression, and the senses are revelled with sounds, soothing as

The sweet south breathing o’er a bank of violets.

Nor do these alone “do all the deed,” , is there not Noblet, more radiant in beauty than the sun she emerges from, , exhibiting, as Aristotle says, “the poetry of motion,” “catching a grace” far, very far, “beyond the reach of art?” Are there not taste and beauty, “before, behind, and on every side?” Is there not , but away with criticism and all its cant , there is nothing for its Vampire gaze to fix upon, away! , aye, away too with my stilts, for I find I had got upon them, and before I’m thrown (if I am not already fallen is your and your readers’ estimation) let me descend prudently and at once , Now I am down, we’ll begin to talk within our natural pitch.

There are but two finer Theatres in Europe than our Italian Opera,- La Scala at Milan, and San Carlos at Naples (the grand Opera at Venice, which, owing to the poverty of the Venetians, is now opened only during the carnival, is neither so handsome, nor so large) La Scala is a fine theatre, but the Milanese are Frenchified, they go in undress and talk loudly during the performance: one merit at every turn the blank, dull face of an Austrian officer, an antidote to all that is enlivening or mental- every thing is triste and fade, the performers are generally very little above second rate, and so much are our expectations disappointed, that one comes away degouté”. “They manage these things better” at Naples , San Carlos, even without, is worthy of the people who frequent it, and of the sky it stands under- it i beautiful; within, it is glowing and splendid , brilliant as the golden chariot of Phaeton , and every part is correspondent: the actors are of the first talent; Rossini is the composer and superintendent of the musical department. The ballet sometimes displays two hundred and fifty pairs of legs in motion; the scenery is by Italian masters; the audience is Neapolitan, and they go “en grande toilette.” There is more of the ideal in the Neapolitan character, person and spirit combined, than is to be found elsewhere in Italy, (perhaps I should not exclude the Florentines) and they have therefore more Roués. The Vicar General is certainly one , he possesses all the attributes, his portly person and matured age do not even detract from them: he has the fire and enthusiasm, corrected of course by the tact and judgment, which tend to animate the character. I have often thought he appeared very like the Duke of York; and where is the man “base or brave enough” to say that he is not a Roué? But if our Opera is not so glowing as that of Naples, it is, as I have already inferred of our lounges, certainly the supremest public pleasure we can enjoy. Independently of the performance, shew me female beauty of a higher order or rank, or the manly arm more eminently graced. Turn our eye to that box, occupied just now by Lady W–r and my Lord Castlereagh, , what can the eye of taste desire more? Observe her Grecian bust, and equally Grecian air, sustained with Patrician ease and grace , but charming as she is, we can look at him, nor yet be inclined to turn our backs upon ourselves: “(a sorry phrase, but let it pass.) ‘Tis fine, well-placed head , his pallid face, the expression of which habit had discipline have put under his own controul, his very hands, or rather the well fitting gloves upon them, speak of superiority, and make us regret that he is not all Roué. I love not the politician, but I admire the man, I would not be like Jack Cade, “Hang all those who can read and write.” –Though last, not least, look at the High Personage in the opposite box , Have not the deities who preside over taste, ‘tended there to form a gentleman?, but, I beg pardon, he is not a subject, at least for irreverent hands like mine to describe , And therefore, in conclusion, as the learned say, let me tell you, that we now patronize the Opera, and mean to make it one of our amusements, certainly so long as it is well conducted; and we know the present proprietor, Mr. Ebers, too well to fear any falling off.

Adieu , I am tired: if you insert this, you shall soon hear from some of us again. Your’s, A ROUà‰.

* The Cosmo at Milan is a sort of Crab, for both sexes.
** The Academia is the resort of the distingués at Naples: conversation, dancing, and play are its amusements, which end about midnight; after which the company promenade in the Villa Reale, a garden overlooking the Bay, and opposite to Vesuvius: who can doubt the taste of a Neapolitan?

Quoted from: The London Magazine. Vol. III. No. XVI. April 1821. 419-423.